California Governor Vetoes Ban On Warrantless Phone Searches 462
kodiaktau writes "In probably the most important decision Gov. Brown of California will make this year, he has vetoed the bill that would require officers to get a search warrant before searching cellular phones of arrested citizens. This further enables the police to carry out warrantless searches of private property extending into contacts, email, photos, banking activity, GPS, and other functions that are controlled by modern phones. 'He cites a recent California Supreme Court decision upholding the warrantless searches of people incident to an arrest. In his brief message (PDF), he also doesn’t say whether it’s a good idea or not. Instead, he says the state Supreme Court’s decision is good enough, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court let stand last week.'"
Re:How many Californians (Score:2, Informative)
Deliberately ignoring the Bill of Rights (Score:5, Informative)
According to the World English Dictionary:
1. Also called: personal effects personal property or belongings
According to the Bill of Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What about that is so complicated that the courts and the governor can't understand it? A cellphone is an effect and the Bill of rights says you need a warrant to search those. It offers no exceptions.
Re:How many Californians (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Vote 'em out (Score:5, Informative)
"And vote in who? That's the problem, there is no candidate or major party right now that could come close to winning a stamp of approval from folks who care about civil liberties."
Really? Are you going to be like most of the media outlets that have ignored Ron Paul?
In 30 years of politics, he has never broken a campaign promise; he has invariably voted exactly the way he said he would. He has consistently voted against unconstitutional laws, even when his stance was unpopular.
He predicted exactly the current economic situation well before it happened, when all the others were exclaiming about how well the economy was doing, right up to the crash in 2008. (Herman Cain, for example, is on video proclaiming the wonderful state of the economy, one week before the crash.)
The difference between Paul, and the other current candidates who have been saying things people have been wanting to hear, is that Paul has been consistently saying the same things for many years. The others are just saying them because they know that's what people want to hear.
And he has been consistently leading in the polls, and also making good campaign money. He received twice as much campaign money from enlisted military personnel than all the other GOP candidates combined, and more than Obama as well. That should tell you something.
He has also been leading the straw polls.
So, to summarize: he has proven himself to be honest, he has been dedicated to changing government in a good way, even when that view was unpopular, and he is popular. What more do you want?
Re:How many Californians (Score:2, Informative)
Oh yeah New Hampshire is a free state.
Wiretapping gone wrong [techdirt.com]
Re:Vote 'em out (Score:4, Informative)
Ron Paul was 'predicting' the current situation since well into 90-s. So no, it doesn't count.
If in the 1990s someone told you, "Your computer won't run the most popular OS in 2011." Would they have been wrong? Ron Paul had the foresight to see that the economy was on an unsustainable course back in the 1990s, long before the dot com crash. It does not take a genius to look at the history of fiat currencies and the inevitable boom / bust cycles to say, "This is going to come off the rails eventually."
And during the crisis he's been constantly mis-predicting, well, everything (runaway inflation, hellllo?).
Outside of CPI, inflation has been going up significantly.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=59409 [wnd.com]
And last, but not least - his recipes to help the economy are disastrous.
They are now. If they had been implemented earlier we might have had a chance. As it stands, the middle class in America will be all but completely wiped out in the next generation. There is not anything that Ron Paul, or anyone else can do about it. The dynamics of the world have shifted. The American standard of living will only decline from here on out.
Re:You could just get a dumbphone (Score:4, Informative)
Why are you standing for this, Cali?
Because we, inexplicably, vote for whoever has the (D) next to their name, regardless of who that person is. Not to say that ol' Meg Whitman was a great alternative, but we elected a crazy old man who already screwed up this state the first time around!
Re:Vote 'em out (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How many Californians (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, they are not releasing tens of thousands of prisoners, which is what they probably should do, but of course we can't afford the review necessary to pick them out, either. Instead, they are dumping them on the counties, which will bankrupt some of them. The counties seem to have the opportunity to "simply" place them on some kind of lightweight parole program, which would still require additional staff, but not as much.
Disingenuous again.
Re:How many Californians (Score:2, Informative)
Did you mean the alarm system that the cops won't respond to due to budget cuts or the unloaded firearm you're not allowed to leave the house with? (since Brown just outlawed open carry and it's virtually impossible for a normal citizen to get a concealed carry permit in this state).
Remember kids, when seconds count the police are just minutes away!